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Guest Editor's Introduction, Linda Frost

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Guest editor's introduction to volume 25, issue 2 of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (Fall/Winter 2024), special issue: Forum on student mental health.

You Are Not Alone: An Innovative, Collaborative Approach To Student Wellness And Mental Health In Honors, Sheryl Ford, Joshua Stockley

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay presents an innovative, proactive solution to the growing mental health needs of honors students. Authors discuss the ways in which one program at a large public university revised curriculum, created programming, and formed strategic partnership with the university’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program to understand and address student mental health in honors. Acknowledging a growing national trend of depression, anxiety, and suicide among college students, authors posit that dynamic outreach and dialogue with students about their struggles with assignments, activities, and academic expectations can create effective strategies for nurturing student development and well-being.

Dedication: Keith Garbutt, Linda Frost

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Special issue on forum on student mental health, dedication to Keith Garbutt, Dean of the Honors College at West Virginia University.

Front And Backmatter [Jnchc 2024 25(2)]

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Front and back matter for volume 25, issue 2 of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (Fall/Winter 2024); special issue: Forum on student mental health.

About The Nchc Monograph Series

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

About the National Collegiate Honors Council monograph series.

About The Authors [Jnchc 2024, 25(2)]

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

About the authors of volume 25, issue 2 of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (Fall/Winter 2024); special issue: Forum on student mental health.

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council (Fall/Winter 2024) 25(2): Whole Issue

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Contents

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines

Dedication to Keith Garbutt, Linda Frost

Guest Editor’s Introduction, Linda Frost

Note From the Incoming Editor, Amy Mecklenburg-Faenger

FORUM ESSAYS ON “STUDENT MENTAL HEALTH”

Face-to-Face: A Sociologist Looks at College Students’ Mental Health, Maureen Kelleher

Out of the Cave: Technology and the Importance of Community to Learning and Mental Health, Richard England

Fostering Relationships with Faculty, Peers, and Parents to Support Undergraduate Honors Students’ Mental Health, Allison A. Buskirk-Cohen and Alicia N. Shenko

Honors Is More Than a Grade: Removing the Experiential Ceiling in Honors, Justin L. Rheubert, Marisa Prisco, Paige A. …

Out Of The Cave: Technology And The Importance Of Community To Learning And Mental Health, Richard England

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay draws upon Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” to examine student use of personal electronic devices and emphasize the value and power of conversation in learning communities. Observing the isolation that often characterizes the five minutes prior to class time, the author considers the psychosocial challenges to building classroom community in a technological age. Literature review provides ample testimony on how emergent technologies contribute to social fragmentation, emotional instability, and pedagogical hurdles. Noting current smartphone bans in K–12 education, the author acknowledges similar challenges to tertiary education, suggesting that individualized “caves” of ubiquitous personal (and highly personalized) technology are …

Honors Is More Than A Grade: Removing The Experiential Ceiling In Honors, Justin L. Rheubert, Marisa Prisco, Paige A. Grum, Abby L. Kalkstein

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The stress created by academic pressure may prevent honors students from exploring curricula beyond that required by their majors. Challenged with additional workload and extracurricular requirements, students in honors often confront added stress caused by a desire to perform favorably in all academic pursuits. This pressure may result in hesitancy to explore new ideas, nurture curiosity, or break free from the rigors of a defined program of study—the opposite of what honors pedagogy and practice purport. This essay presents the process of converting a weighted grading system to pass/fail in an effort to provide students with opportunities for academic exploration …

Charting A Course For Belonging: Creating An Honors Mindfulness Learning Community, Kristy Spear, Gayathry Prabhakaran

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In today’s post-pandemic world, a sense of belonging within and in the larger relational world is something that many people struggle with, particularly those individuals leaving home to enter college. Socially engaged mindfulness can connect individuals with their breath, thoughts, emotions, and one another to promote and support well-being. This essay presents a programmatic overview of a Mindfulness Learning Community (MLC) in honors. Created for incoming first-year students (N = 31) to aid in their transition to college life, the multi-semester academic, social, and experiential-based learning community aims to teach honors students the psychological and physiological value of mindful practice, …

Mental Health Among Honors College Students: Evidence From College Entry Essays, Mohini Gobin, Jaclyn Kopel, Eric Osborne-Christenson, Anna Shostya

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This study explores the effect of preexisting mental health issues on college students’ academic performance. Using unique data from the honors college at a medium-sized urban private university, authors examine college entry essays (N = 1,062) in five classes (two pre-pandemic and three post-pandemic), as well as advisors’ (N = 7) notes. Mental health (MH) concerns are grouped into six non-mutually exclusive categories: depression/anxiety, neurodiversity/learning disabilities, identity-related concerns, grief/loss, trauma, and the mental health of others whose lives impact the student. The study finds that the number of honors students citing mental health in their entrance essays more …

The Well-Being Of Honors College Students Compared To Non-Honors College Students Accounting For Prior Gifted Experience, Hannah C. Dewald, Allyson S. Graf

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Student wellness is a growing concern among educators. Previous studies on the well-being of honors students as compared to other undergraduates result in mixed findings. This study examines the trajectory of gifted programming in education and specific challenges to the collegiate experience, presenting differences between honors students (N = 49) and non-honors peers (N = 138) using two well-being indicators (academic anxiety and academic self-efficacy) and three related factors (perceived past school competitiveness, maladaptive perfectionism, and pressure due to labeling). While authors posit that honors students may have higher academic anxiety and lower self-efficacy than those not enrolled …

Face-To-Face: A Sociologist Looks At College Students' Mental Health, Maureen Kelleher

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

While both individual honors programs and their broader campus communities have implemented new initiatives and intervention strategies to address undergraduate mental health, significant needs remain unmet and concerns unaddressed about the long-term implications for students. This paper provides a framework for understanding the current (2023) environment on many campuses by presenting national legislation that shapes campus response, offering cases of specific institutional responses to crisis, and exploring the impact of face-to-face interaction between faculty and students in classrooms. Awareness of these three levels of response—national, campus, and classroom—equips and empowers the honors community to understand and effectively deal with myriad …

The Perspective Of An Alumnus, Rifah Tasnim

Early College Folio

No abstract provided.

Editor’S Note, Amanda Landi

Early College Folio

No abstract provided.

Contributors

Early College Folio

Contributors, Early College Folio, Volume 3, Issue 1 (2024).

Critical Media Literacy: Taking Steps To Understand And Implement (In First-Year Composition Courses), Kevin Shank, Lara Searcy

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

This article considers ways to advance critical media literacy (CML) in English language arts spaces, particularly first-year composition. Due to the growing need for critical media literacy, authors outline two steps — first, taking steps toward understanding CML and second, sharing resources to help educators integrate more critical media literacy into the field of English language arts. The authors created and share a Media Text Complexity Rationale (https://bit.ly/MediaTextComplexityRationale) that can guide educators in text selection, along with three other related resources to help teachers understand and implement CML during instructional design.

The Embedded Scaffolded Writing Mini-Course (Teswmc): An Approach To Improve Teacher Candidates’ Writing Skills And Attitudes, Vicky Giouroukakis Ph.D., Laurie Bocca

Teaching/Writing: The Journal of Writing Teacher Education

High-quality academic writing is critical to student success in graduate-level education courses and professional advancement in our field. The Embedded Scaffolded Writing Mini-Course (TESWMC) was designed to both improve teacher candidates’ skills in writing critically and effectively and to positively influence teacher candidates’ attitudes towards writing. The 7-week mini-course was taught by the teacher educator/researcher as a “push-in” into a semester-long graduate Education course. The mini-course also served as a pilot study to determine its efficacy. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analyzed. Data revealed that teacher candidates reported that their writing skills and attitudes towards writing improved. …

Benefits Of Environmental Education For Low-Income Elementary School Students, Victoria Denoyer

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This study analyzes the benefits of environmental education for low-income elementary school students. As the world is seeing a turbulent downfall in the state of the environment, fostering a healthy and eager generation to find solutions to this crisis is essential. Through analysis using a literature review and qualitative interviews and surveys with in-service teachers and outreach educators, the results determine there are benefits to implementing environmental education for low-income elementary school students. These benefits extend beyond environmental agency and profoundly impact the cognitive, mental, and physical development of low-income students.

Benefits Of Dual Immersion Programs On Elementary School Students, Belle Sanchez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This senior capstone research project aims to share the benefits of dual immersion programs in elementary school years. Understanding what a dual immersion program is and knowing the different models within the program allow parents to select which program is best suited for their students. A key point in clarification is that a dual immersion program does not aim to replace an English, or standard, education program, but adds a target language to enhance the students learning. This study looks at the overall benefits that students can gain in elementary school, from kindergarten through fifth grade, sometimes through eighth grade. …

Table Of Contents

Early College Folio

(2023) "Table of Contents," Early College Folio: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 1. Available at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/earlycollegefolio/vol3/iss1/1

Honors As Neighborhood: 1995 National Collegiate Honors Council Presidential Address, Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

1995 National Collegiate Honors Council Presidential Address, published in the National Honors Report, Vol. XVI, No. 4 (winter 1996), 21–24; rpt. in NHR Vol. XX, No. 4 (winter 1999), 9–12. The typographical errors have been silently corrected.

In this address to members of the National Collegiate Honors Council, outgoing president Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024) reflects on the sensibility and characteristics of neighborhood and considers what this means to honors education and its community of learners. Identifying three values of neighborhood—conversation, personal affiliation and belonging, and caring—Long expounds on their relevance to educators and society at large on the cusp …

Honors As A Changing Neighborhood, Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors programs were conceived for traditional-age suburban middle-class majority-culture students who live on campus or nearby and do not hold full-time jobs or have family responsibilities. While the college population of this century is much more diverse and just as academically capable, first-generation students from traditionally marginalized populations see honors communities as unfamiliar, scary, and unwelcoming neighborhoods. Honors programs seek diversity but practice assimilation with exclusionary admissions policies, curricular inflexibility, and an emphasis on place-dependent community building that invites students to come into honors space rather than taking their offerings out to meet them where they are. Lack of funds …

Honors, Equity, And The Difference Principle, K. Patrick Fazioli

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

While honors programs have made notable advancements in diversity and inclusion, the issue of educational equity remains unresolved. Tensions between providing special opportunities for high-achieving students and adhering to principles of social justice continue to shape the “neighborhood of honors.” This essay seeks to address educational unfairness through Rawls’s “difference principle,” which asserts that inequalities are morally permissible only if they benefit the least advantaged in society. The author suggests that honors programs can adhere to this principle by focusing on service and support for marginalized groups within and beyond the campus community, providing opportunities for talented students from underserved …

Institutional Neighborhoods And The Stories They Tell, Joyce Olewski Inman

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council's (NCHC’s) tribute to Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024), this response to “Honors as Neighborhood” (1995) encourages scholars and practitioners to (re)consider the problems with conceptualizing honors programs as neighborhoods given the systemic inequalities associated with both. Drawing from experience at an R1 regional institution in the South, the author outlines the institutional histories of programming in both basic writing and honors to elucidate the systemic racism leading to the creation of these programs and illuminate the stories these programs tell about the deep stratification evident on college campuses across the nation.

From Individuals To Neighbors: Growth Through Embracing Positionality, Joy L. Hart, Andrea Radasanu, Rebecca C. Bott-Kutson, Jonathan D. Kotinek

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Drawing inspiration from Dr. Ada Long’s (1995) presidential address, the authors describe an experience that facilitates neighborhood-building among honors educators and students across the nation as well as a neighborhood approach to understanding social problems. Focusing on food justice in the first year of the Justice Challenge, honors students learn about community needs, develop leadership and partnership skills, and collaborate with community members through an array of opportunities. Throughout the academic year, individual positionality shifts through deeper engagement with multiple viewpoints and facilitates new approaches for collaboration toward effectively addressing thorny problems. Cultivation of such connections is central in revitalizing …

International Honors Neighbors, Mimi Killinger, Abigail Arnold, Abby Bouchard, Katharine Poulin, Gabriella Shetreet, Kailee Soucia

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

cohort of five students and one faculty member share ways in which their Bulgarian study abroad experience (2024) built upon an existing international partnership and, in so doing, aligned with the tenets of, and goals for, “neighborhoods” as described by Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024). The authors describe lessons learned through the unique pedagogy and practices of NCHC’s City as Text^®, suggesting that honors may be especially well suited for neighborly international exchange. The authors describe their study abroad experiences as being effective in developing a sense of global citizenship across cultural divides and cultivating an actual sense of …

Neighbors Outside, Inside, And Beyond The Classroom: A Pioneering Honors Program In The University Of Illinois System, Katie Carlson-Eastvold, Marc Klingshirn, Elise Lobue

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The authors describe the shift from an upper-division university to a four-year school and the establishment of an honors program as a result. This essay chronicles the inaugural honors class, characterizing the pioneering aspect of its undergraduates. Reflecting on institutional history and the neighborliness of honors, authors consider the impact that living-learning community (LLC) experience and classroom spaces have on both the individual and the collective. Authors discuss the utility of student codes of conduct, agreed-upon guidelines for class discussions, and student input on course design and delivery. Across the spectrum of undergraduate experiences—from those during the first year to …

Expanding Our Honors Neighborhood: Teaching In And About Jails And Prisons, Victoria M. Bryan, Owen Cantrell

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024) advocated for equal access to quality education. Authors suggest that her reflections on neighborhoods, community, and intentional inclusion were not one-off musings but rather indicative of how she saw her responsibility as an educator. Drawing on Long’s establishment of a lecture series that brought faculty into a local Alabama prison to share research with incarerated students, this essay presents firsthand experiences teaching honors courses in prison, particularly those offered at Walker State Prison as part of Georgia State University’s Prison Education Project (2016–2023). While honors colleges often build programs to be as community-centric as possible, authors …

Good Neighbors, James Ford

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In response to Dr. Ada Long’s 1995 NCHC Presidential Address “Honors as Neighborhood,” the author argues that making honors an open neighborhood is a worthy goal that requires significant work. Programs emphasizing student and faculty reflection, diverse voices, purpose, and the wholeness of human beings increase a sense of belonging in honors. Long’s presence, words, and ideas continue to inspire the work of others.